


Prepare For The Arrival

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rewrite of Arrival to include Kaidan joining Shepard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

As the shuttle flew off, Shepard took a deep breath. He didn’t particularly want to be here, deep in batarian territory, where a single image of him would be able to spark a war. But Hackett had done him a lot of favors, namely denying the Alliance request to bring him in, probably in irons to have hopefully a living autopsy done on him to find out how Cerberus resurrected him. Hackett had asked him to go, and go in alone. 

He looked at the batarian prison, where, according to Hackett’s reports, Doctor Amanda Kenson was being held at. It was an uninspiring sight, to no surprised. Who dressed up a prison, especially a back entrance? 

Quickly, he assessed the situation. The door in was closed, which meant he’d have to find a power junction and cut power to the lock. Shepard almost longed for the days of manual locks, something he could have just shot off or picked, rather than knock out the local power systems, but figured that might just have led to a guard being posted out here or just inside. The control box was by the door, and fortunately didn’t require much to cause a disruption in the power that kept the door locked, just long enough to get through.

As the door closed behind him, Shepard could hear the howls of varren echoing off of the stone walls. No surprise there – even if varren weren’t almost literally everywhere (he sometimes wondered what the odds were that the krogan would give one of their more invasive species a name that sounded so close to the word ‘vermin’ in English), he remembered Balak and his forces had used some as war dogs on asteroid X-57 two years ago, so the batarians obviously had access to them.

He readied himself for a varren to make an appearance as he moved through the grimy hallway, but didn’t discover anything before reaching a gaping hole in the floor. There were controls for a bridge nearby, indicating that even the batarians weren’t risking their lives dealing with things here. Filling the hole would have been an extensive project, and they probably used this as a deterrent for escape attempts, but they at least had a way across, rather than making their people drop down and climb. On occasion, apparently, even they had standards. He kicked the button, but didn’t get anything from the bridge controls. He figured pretty quickly that the varren must have chewed through the wiring. That was obvious from the bite marks on the outer casing. It seemed, though, that this was a common occurrence down here. He could see a switch below, down in the gaping hole, this one with stronger outer casing.

Shepard had noted that there was a passageway a short ways back, one that looked like it would lead to the space below. Given this hole, it made sense that the batarians would have some way for any hapless wanderer to be collected, if only to haul the prisoner back to their cell. He backtracked and followed the passage.

Before he even heard the howl of a varren, a howl far too close to be an echo, his hand was already pulling his Mattock to bear. He didn’t know how far sounds would echo down here, or if there were any batarians close enough to these tunnels to hear, but he could always use the Mattock as a club if he had to. 

The varren’s howl turned to a low growl and as Shepard rounded the corner into the pit, he saw the varren, emerging from an alcove that it had been hiding in when Shepard had looked down from above. The varren came at him and Shepard reacted on instinct, striking the varren right in the muzzle with his Mattock. The varren was stunned, so Shepard finished it off with a swift strike against the neck, hearing the snap of its bones. It fell to the ground, its eyes becoming glossy. 

Shepard hated killing animals in their own habitat. The batarian prison might be artificial, but it was clear the varren had made a home down here. He was the intruder. The animals were just defending their territory. Plus, ever since he’d gotten Urz following him around back in the Urdnot camp on Tuchanka, he’d come to see the varren as almost cute. Maybe not quite domesticated, but he’d seriously given thought to bringing Urz onto the Normandy.

He shook his head, clearing out the cobwebs. He was here on a mission. Rescue Doctor Kenson. Not adopt the varren being treated like crap by the batarians. 

Heading back up the passage, he was about to round the corner out to the bridge when he saw the shadow. It was humanoid, and he was concerned he’d already been found out. This was supposed to be a stealth mission. If his cover was already blown, Kenson was probably dead. Not for the first time, Shepard wished that Hackett hadn’t insisted he go in alone. His crew wasn’t Alliance, after all. Shepard was barely on pleasant terms with the Alliance.

He pressed against the wall, waiting to see who it was. He might not have been found out. This might just be a routine patrol, having nothing to do with Shepard’s presence. He didn’t find that likely, given that this spot had been picked precisely because it was out of the way and showed little signs of use. Although he preferred using Mattock rifle, decompressing it would make more noise than he wanted to risk. Instead, he went with the Carnifax that was holstered at his side and readied himself for whoever was coming. Even with that, he heard the shift in stance, the way that the newcomer stopped at the sound of the gun being drawn. He knew he’d been heard, and there was little chance of the other person not investigating. Might as well get this over with. 

He still wasn’t ready. Not when he saw the dark grey armor. Not when he saw the glow of biotics. Not when he saw Kaidan Alenko’s face.

“Kaidan?”

“Shepard.” Kaidan’s biotics dimmed. The look on his face said he’d expected Shepard. It also spoke of wariness on Kaidan’s part, of uncertainty. Shepard wasn’t surprised about that, given how they’d left things on Horizon. Still, Shepard was surprised to see him here.

“Kaidan, what are you doing here?” Hackett had emphasized that he wanted to keep the Alliance out of this situation. Kaidan definitely counted as ‘Alliance.’

“Hackett thought you could use some backup. He decided to send someone he could trust to help you out.” Kaidan said it evenly, that it was a simple statement of fact. But Shepard heard the undercurrent – that he was there to monitor Shepard, gauge his trustworthiness. Who better to do that, after all, than someone who had worked with Shepard before, but refused to join in his suicide mission put together by Cerberus?

A part of Shepard wanted to question him on that here and now, get all the dirty laundry aired out so they could at least have that dealt with. But every second they delayed, the chances that the batarians would get something from Kenson that they shouldn’t, or even just decide to kill her, went up. This wasn’t the time for the airing of grievances. They needed to move.

“Can’t say I don’t appreciate having some back-up on this mission. I wasn’t looking forward to going through a batarian prison on my own,” Shepard said, motioning to the bridge. 

Still appraising Shepard, Kaidan nodded and began moving forward. “It’s definitely not the vacation spot of the galaxy.”

“At least it’s warmer than Noveria. It’s not like we have any sweaters,” Shepard offered. He could see Kaidan attempt to repress a shudder at the mention of the planet frozen in ice and red tape, and grinned to himself. Kaidan was in a position to question whether or not Shepard was an imposter, some Cerberus deep cover operative who’d been surgically altered and given access to everything they could get their hands on regarding Shepard’s background. Even with all that, he doubted they’d have been able to get on any record Kaidan’s remark about how he should have brought a sweater to Noveria. 

They crossed the bridge dealt with a couple more varren before they came to a series of pipes, spewing out plumes of fire. Shepard had a feeling that any safety inspection organization would have an aneurism if they had a good look at the standard around here. A quick look around located the gas valves. Kaidan consulted his omni-tool. “I’m looking over where these pipes lead. I don’t think anyone will notice if we redirect the flow of the gas down here.”

“Good.” With the endorsement, Shepard turned the valve, and the flames trickled off. They kept going, and found themselves in a living area. Seeing no sign of any guards through the windows, Shepard was relieved.

It seemed Kaidan recognized the look on his face. “This really isn’t the time to stop and talk, Shepard. Doctor Kenson’s still missing.”

“Yeah, and we’re about to face potential combat. I figure there’s not going to be much better of a chance to clear the air, at least enough to be sure that we’re both able to trust each other.” Shepard knew that they’d left things in a bad place on Horizon. He could admit his own fault in that as well, knowing that he’d expected a lot of Kaidan that, realistically, he couldn’t have been able to live up to. Things had been left in a bad place, so far as Shepard was concerned. He still wanted to trust Kaidan, still saw him as the man he’d trusted at his side through the hunt for Saren. The question he had was if Kaidan thought the same of him.

Kaidan sighed, recognizing that Shepard wasn’t about to just let this go. “Fine. What do you want to say, Shepard?” He crossed his arms, clearly not inclined to offer Shepard much in the way of slack. 

Now that they were having it out, though, Shepard realized he didn’t know where to start. That had been the problem on Horizon, that he’d spoken without thinking. He needed to handle this differently. He took a steadying breath, trying to figure out what, if anything, he could say about everything that had happened since the Collector attack on the Normandy. “I... I understand. Why you didn’t believe me on Horizon. Or choose to come with me. If I’d been in your position, I’d have done the same.”

Whatever Kaidan had been expecting, it didn’t seem to have been that. For a moment, the defensive shield of distrust and disapproval dropped, allowing, for a brief flash, his surprise to show. He’d been ready for Shepard to attack him, apparently, having expected that Shepard would have called him out for his refusal to join up, maybe even throw the fact that, despite all that, Hackett had trusted him with this mission. 

He took a moment to regain his mental balance. “Thank you, Shepard.” He said it like it offered him a chance to let a heavy weight off his shoulders. He didn’t say anything for a moment, considering. “We really do need to find Doctor Kenson.” 

Shepard wanted to push, to talk and converse with Kaidan, like they used to back on the SR-1. But he had a point. They were in the middle of a mission. This wasn’t really the best time or place for a heart to heart. But at least there was progress now – Kaidan might not be sure of his loyalties, but he seemed more willing to take Shepard on faith right now. That might only count for so much, but it was enough to at least see this mission through.

“All right. I suppose the rest can wait for later,” Shepard nodded. They proceeded out the door, watching for guards.


	2. Chapter 2

As they crept forward, Shepard heard some low mumblings. He motioned to Kaidan, who followed his lead and ducked behind some of the scattered equipment in the yard as a pair of guards walked out of one of the other buildings. The batarians were speaking to each other, though they were far enough away that Shepard’s translator didn’t kick in. They moved on and assumed a guard position out of Shepard and Kaidan’s immediate line of sight.

Under the circumstances, Shepard doubted that he and Kaidan were likely to communicate further. They weren’t wearing helmets with isolated commlines, which meant that they would be speaking out loud for anyone to overhear. That wasn’t a good thing on a covert mission. 

Fortunately, they both were familiar enough with hand signals and signs, they could at least make do in the process as they made their way through the facility. They fell into a familiar pattern, their reflexes still honed from their time together on the hunt for Saren, despite the time that had passed since then. 

It was a comfort to Shepard. It was something that made him think that maybe he could regain Kaidan’s trust, that the tie between them wasn’t as frayed as he’d thought on Horizon. 

The batarian prison base seemed lightly guarded. Presumably, the Hegemony had enough faith in its control of its people that their own people wouldn’t go investigating the prison, and that it was too far inside their territory for any intruders to come poking around. Batarian arrogance normally pissed Shepard off – the batarians he’d met who were insistent that they were ‘the apex of civilization’ were generally the ones he particularly needed to put a bullet between all four of their eyes. But right now, as he and Kaidan made their way through the prison, he was grateful for it. Fewer guards wandering around meant they were going to be fewer guards to fight. 

They managed to reach a garage area undetected, despite coming close to it from a few corners. Fortunately, batarians apparently had lousy hearing, and, this deep in batarian space, seemed willing to wear helmets that offered little peripheral vision. They ran into some trouble, though with the fact that once there, they didn’t exactly have other paths to take. The door out of the garage was sealed, and neither of them were all that interested in turning around and trying to find another way to the prison.

Kaidan moved to the control panels. “It looks like there is a cargo access lift down to the prison level in here.” He pointed to some of the crates down and across the room. 

“I have some choice words for whoever decided that a lift was the place to store all of these,” Shepard murmured.

“No one ever accused the batarians of good sense. After all, their security’s clearly bottom of the barrel.”

“A fair point.” The ease of the banter was refreshing. Even with the rest of his squad, Shepard hadn’t quite found that click with any of them. 

They both spotted the overhead lift and punched the controls to get the lift cleared off enough to allow them to drop down to the lower level. “We have to be near the prison now,” Shepard muttered, more to himself. The last thing he wanted was to jump through yet another hoop in order to get Kenson out of here. 

They both heard it then. Shouts of a woman, which had to be Kenson – he didn’t know about the batarian caste system’s view of women, but he’d yet to meet a batarian woman who had taken a role in the batarian military. So the odds of that female voice being anyone but Kenson were low. With a look, Shepard and Kaidan moved to the door they heard it coming from, taking positions on either side of it. Shepard gave a silent countdown, then hit the switch opening it.

A human woman with greying dark hair was restrained to some kind of device. The device looked particularly sinister, something designed with the idea of inflicting pain more than anything else. A batarian guard stood before her, imputing commands. He didn’t seem to have registered the door opening, having his back to it. But she noticed. Shepard aimed his gun at the guard, but before he could fire, Kaidan’s biotics flared and the batarian was tossed against the wall. 

Shepard shot him a look, surprised – Kaidan had tended towards defensive uses of his biotics before. Not that he didn’t appreciate the action. 

Kaidan smirked slightly. “I’ve picked up a few tricks since Saren,” he said.

“Who are you?” Kenson asked as Shepard and Kaidan made to get her out of the contraption. 

“Commander Shepard, Lieutenant Alenko. We’re here to get you out of here.”

“Hackett sent us,” Kaidan added. He looked to the controls that the device was hooked up to, and fired off an Overload charge at it. That gave Kenson the chance she needed to pull herself out of the restraints.

It also set off an alarm. Shepard and Kaidan glanced at each other, a mutual expression of ‘crap’ on their faces.

“We’d better get out of here,” Shepard said. “Kenson?” he called, looked to the freed prisoner.

She had gotten herself out of the contraption and had moved to the fallen batarian. She’d pulled the pistol out of the holster on his side, then delivered a kick to him for good measure before she looked to the two soldiers. “Ready.”

Shepard glanced around the corner and saw a guard coming to investigate the noise. He fired off a shot, hurling the guard back. A security door immediately slid into place, cutting off the path they’d come through. “Looks like we’re gonna have to find another way out of here,” Shepard said as he motioned for Kaidan and Kenson to get moving.

“There’s a cargo bay this way,” Kenson stated. “I managed to get a look at the blueprints before I was captured,” she added before either of them could ask how she knew. She moved ahead of them both. 

Shepard and Kaidan still managed to share a look – both of them had the instincts that told them that they weren’t going to find things as easy as they sounded. But they followed Kenson as she made her way down the hall.

Neither Shepard nor Kaidan had anything but skepticism about the absence of security forces rushing them. “Wanna lay odds the batarians are setting up an ambush?” Shepard asked Kaidan in an aside.

Kaidan chuckled. “No bet.” He holstered the pistol he’d been using and pulled out an assault rifle. “Think I’ll need a heavier rate of fire after this,” he murmured.

“When’d you start using an assault rifle?” Shepard asked. Kaidan had more often used his biotics for distance fighting and a pistol last time they’d worked together. Kaidan had always said he preferred it that way when Shepard had offered to train with him and get him certified for a different weapon.

Kaidan shrugged. “After Saren... After the Normandy... Certifying on a few more weapons seemed a little more important.” Although he was playing it casual, Shepard knew that there was a lot of skill involved in cross-training in a new weapon. Though they were all similar in the form that they were all capable of being pointed and firing, there were tricks to any set of weapons that you only picked up from experience. 

Kenson had run on ahead to the garage entrance and was fiddling with the lock. “I’ve almost got it. The batarians are sure to be on alert on the other side, however!”

With a glance to Kaidan to see if he was ready, getting an affirming nod in response, Shepard nodded to Kenson. “So are we. Let’s go.” Kenson looked to the panel in front of her and put in the last code of digits. The door began to slide down. 

At first, the batarians on the other side didn’t react, probably expecting their own people to enter. Shepard fired off a headshot to one, while Kaidan biotically tossed another against a wall. The both of them opened fire on the batarian who had projected shields up. Their combined assault managed to break through the shields and finish off the batarian before he could take solid aim at either of them, causing him to go down, firing off a stream of bullets before coming to rest. Kenson proceeded on with them watching her back.

When another team of batarians appeared, this group in the control bay, all three of them fired off successive shots, taking them down. Kenson raced to a rear control panel. “This should lock down the area, allow us to use the lift and escape. We have to get back to the Project.”

She said ‘the Project’ as if it was significant. Shepard and Kaidan shared a look, neither of them recognizing her meaning. Still, with Kenson distracted, both of them turned, knowing they’d face opposition from either side. Both of them recognized that the door they’d entered from could easily be used to let reinforcements enter, and there was a matching door on the other side of the garage. They split up, Shepard for the one on the right, Kaidan, the one on the left.

There were a couple of waves of additional support staff attempting to dislodge them, but Shepard found that after dealing with the geth, the three most dominant mercenary gangs in the Terminus Systems, and the Collectors, up to and including the massive multi-story proto-Reaper they’d been building, a handful of batarian prison guards in riot gear were nothing worth commenting on. Kaidan held his own as well, proving that he’d definitely not gotten rusty in the time since Saren.

It was a few minutes later that the lift in the center of the room locked into place and Kenson ran from the terminal in the back. “Let’s go!” she called. Shepard and Kaidan followed her back, both doing a spot check on their thermal clips. Shepard had never particularly cared for the change in design – if you were careful and knew what you were doing, you’d rarely overheat, and if you took care of your weapon, it’d cooldown fast enough on its own. But argue with the manufactioners – they learned about a more cost-effective design that offered more punch per shot, saw they could get money off of making heat sinks, issued a recall of old models, and quickly enough, heat sinks were all the rage, so far as the weapon sellers cared.

He glanced over to Kaidan, who looked to be doing an amp check, making sure he wasn’t overtaxing his biotics. Kaidan noted his attention, passing him a silent nod, an indication that he was still good for combat. 

The lift reached its destination. “Kenson, now where are we going?” Shepard asked. He could still call on the shuttle from the Normandy, but the three of them would still have to wait on that arrival, with the additional fact of breaking radio silence here lost the Alliance the plausible deniability that Hackett had asked for – the transmission would be picked up and dissected in no time. Despite having done this as a favor to Hackett, he doubted that if the batarians picked up his signal, they wouldn’t let the fact that he was currently outside the Alliance chain of command have any kind of effect on them.

“That cargo loading area I mentioned should be through here,” Kenson reported. “If we’re lucky, there’s a shuttle fueled up and ready to go.”

On their way through the prison area, Shepard and Kaidan had seen a shuttle come down, which meant that, uncommonly, they were lucky. “We saw one come down earlier.”

“Then we should be able to get out of here and to the Project,” Kenson said, sounding very relieved to be returning to this ‘Project’ of hers. 

Something was niggling in the back of Shepard’s mind, sounding an alarm. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. 

They had to fight their way through another group of batarians in the hangar, but, to Shepard’s surprise, the rather beaten shuttle had enough fuel that, once they’d cleared the room and blown open the doors, they were off Arahtot. It wasn’t simple, but in comparison with some of the other fights that Shepard had had to go through over the last however long it was (two years if you counted his time at Lazarus), it was comparatively easy.

Which meant that it was time to learn about this ‘Project’ of hers.


	3. Chapter 3

Kenson set the autopilot, then moved back into the center compartment. “We should be well out of range before they can unscramble their security protocols.”

“Are they going to come after you?” Kaidan asked.

Kenson shook her head. “I doubt it. I won’t take any chances, but they’re likely to have other things to deal with soon.” She sighed as she rubbed at her neck. “It is a relief to be out of there, though.”

“I can imagine,” Shepard said. Something about all of this was still setting off his internal alarms, though he wasn’t sure what it was. He knew it didn’t relate to the batarians, but what specifically it was, he couldn’t say for sure. He looked to Kenson. “What’s this ‘Project’ you’ve been mentioning?”

“That’s... a long story,” Kenson said.

Kaidan shrugged. “We have a bit of time right now.” By his tone, Shepard could tell he had that same niggling suspicion of something, that he wasn’t ready to take anything at face value. It was nice to hear that his suspicions were echoed. “And Admiral Hackett said that you found something relating to the Reapers?”

Kenson stiffened at the mention of the Reapers, a reaction Shepard could certainly understand. “Yes. My team was investigating possible signs of Reaper influence out here, on the outskirts of this system. We were basically chasing down rumors, but when I spoke to Admiral Hackett about it, he said that he was treating rumor as enough to go on at this point.”

Shepard couldn’t blame him. The Council shutting down the very idea of Reapers made things incredibly difficult to gain any serious traction in any respectable organization or government. ‘Rumors’ were about all they really could go off of. 

“Our search,” Kenson continued, “led us to this system. We found an artifact we dubbed ‘Object Rho’ that we believe was left behind by the Reapers.”

Instantly, Shepard and Kaidan both were at attention. “A Reaper artifact?” Kaidan asked, sounding uncertain. 

“If you think it was left by the Reapers, what precautions did you take?” Shepard asked. Being around a Reaper had led to indoctrination, that there was some kind of signal that the Reapers themselves emitted and used to take over the minds of anyone unfortunate enough to be around them. He doubted that their tech, left behind for anyone to pick up, wouldn’t be capable of the same thing.

“We’re fully aware of the threat of indoctrination. We’ve been taken every precaution,” Kenson said. Kaidan shot Shepard a look. Outsiders would probably think of it as asking him for an opinion. Shepard recognized that it was him offering his skepticism about the concept that there were enough precautions to prevent indoctrination. 

Still, much as Shepard doubted that there was no risk of indoctrination on Kenson’s Project, the fact remained, she and her team had found a Reaper artifact. That needed to be dealt with. “What kind of artifact are we talking about here?”

“We’re still not sure, but... It’s been emitting pulses of some kind. And the time between each pulse is decreasing. Our best explanation for this is that when the time between the pulses drops to zero, the Reapers will arrive.”

Now Shepard and Kaidan shared concerned glances. It was definitely a leap, but it was a leap that they had to investigate. Anything on that front had to be looked at – if no one else was looking at the Reaper threat, even the slightest rumor needed to be followed up on, given that the Council wasn’t doing anything about it.

“What makes you say that?” Shepard asked.

“The Relay in this system is emitting similar pulses in time with the artifact. Under the circumstances, we came to believe the worst case scenario was the most likely.”

That elicited a nod from Kaidan. “Can’t say I blame you.”

“So what is this ‘Project’ you keep speaking of?” Shepard asked.

Kenson got a distant look in her eyes at the question. “The Project... The Project is our solution to the threat of the Reapers, at least for the time being. The only way to stop the Reapers from using this system’s Relay, which is connected to dozens of other major hubs in the galaxy, is to destroy it. The Alpha Relay, we call it. Our intention has been to launch a massive asteroid at the Relay.” She paused for a moment, making sure that her words were fully sinking in for the two Alliance officers, both of whom weren’t completely sure they heard her right. “It’s the only way we could think of to be sure. The Reapers will still arrive in our galaxy, but this would give us more time.”

It took a moment to find words.

“Destroying a Relay?” Kaidan gasped out.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Shepard added.

She gave a bitter laugh. “It’s not so much ‘impossible’ as ‘impractical.’ It would take a monumental amount of effort to destroy one conventionally. And something that most of the galaxy doesn’t want to actually try out. It would take an object of massive size to inflict that much damage on a Relay. And the resulting explosion would release enough energy in a single blast that the system that the Relay is in would be utterly destroyed. It’s been described in theoretical projections as having the same effect on a system as a supernova.” She gave them both a long, hard look. “I want to make it very clear. Using the Project means that this system will die.”

Shepard had a sudden flashback to the incident over Terra Nova, asteroid X-57 hurtling towards the planet, heading right for their main population center. The planet would have died if the asteroid had hit. Not just the colony, but the planet itself, probably requiring centuries, if not millennia to settle down from the damage, let alone begin the recovery process. 

And remembering that gave him a crystal clear memory – evacuation hadn’t been an option. Even if the quarian Migrant Fleet had shown up and offered to ferry everyone on the planet away, there simply weren’t enough ships to accomplish a planetary evac, not even if the whole galaxy came together. 

Shepard had no love for the batarians, but it was no simple decision. They had no hard evidence of the Reapers that they could take to any authority. That had been Shepard’s all too constant problem. If they did this, if they were going to make this effort, they had to be as damn sure as they could possibly be.

So he focused himself on that aspect, finding that hard evidence. “We won’t know anything for sure until we get there. I want to see this artifact for myself.” Even giving Kenson the benefit of the doubt, he wasn’t going to make any decision of this magnitude without taking an opportunity to examine this Reaper artifact for himself. And he’d deal with those repercussions once he knew one way or the other.

Kenson nodded. “Of course. I think you’ll agree with our assessment once you get there.” She activated her omni-tool. “Kenson to Project Control.”

There was a moment of silence, then a voice came in over the commline. “ _Doctor! We’d heard what happened to you. We feared the worst._ ”

“I managed to escape. With some help – Commander Shepard is with me.”

“ _Shepard?_ ” The voice on the other end of the line had a sense of awe to it, which wasn’t surprising. Something felt off in the back of his mind, but the threat of the Reapers overrode everything else. 

“Prepare the lab. Commander Shepard needs to examine the artifact.” With that, Kenson switched off her commline, sitting down with a sigh. “Now, we just sit back and wait until we reach the base.”

It was going to be a few minutes yet. Shepard didn’t particularly care for playing the waiting game, rising and pacing in what little room he had in the shuttle. Kaidan moved into the cockpit, and, after a moment, Shepard followed him. 

“Kaidan.”

“Shepard.”

Given the lull, the awkwardness and tension had returned. Shepard moved out of the doorway, allowing the door to slide shut behind him, giving them some privacy. “We should talk,” he said, taking a seat at the controls.

“Probably. I suppose there’s a lot for us to talk about. What with... Cerberus.” Shepard could hear a lot in the way he said that word, a bunch of questions that had probably been lingering since Horizon. Shepard knew that none of the answers would be easy, but he wanted for Kaidan to understand.

“Ask me whatever you want, Kaidan. I’ll be honest with you.”

For a moment, Kaidan was silent, considering. “Shepard... I saw you die. I was watching the Normandy for the escape pods. I saw you, out in the open and exposed as the pod flew away.”

Flashes of memory came to Shepard – the brilliant and blinding yellow beam, carving the Normandy up like a roast. Barking at Joker, trying to get him to leave, to let her go without sacrificing himself in the process. The gasping for air as he futility clutched at-

Shepard shook his head, cutting that off before it got too deep. He’d done his best to avoid thinking about those last moments before... before he’d lost consciousness. He had no intention of going back to that. 

“They told me I was dead. I... I didn’t believe them at first, but... It’s hard to deny.”

By the look on Kaidan’s face, Shepard assumed he was having difficulty with that concept. “You seem pretty lively for a corpse.”

“I may not look it, but... They fit me with god knows how much cybernetic... crap, used whatever mad science they could give a bad name... I don’t remember anything from the Normandy being destroyed until I woke up on a Cerberus station, two years later.” A Cerberus station that was in the process of being torn apart by rampaging mechs. Because that was the kind of luck that befell Commander Shepard.

“Let’s say I believe that Cerberus actually managed to crack the secret to resurrection and immortality. Wouldn’t they have implanted you with some kind of control chip? Something that would let them override your choices?”

“I asked about that. The person responsible for the project, Miranda, said she suggested it, but the head of Cerberus, the Illusive Man, told her anything that might change me was off the table.” Which was why Cerberus had probably moved Shepard to the top of their enemies list after he’d blown the Collector base to hell. If anything had confirmed that Miranda had been telling the truth about not installing the control chip, that’d had been it. 

But the truth wasn’t entirely convincing. “You’re saying that Cerberus poured time, money, and manpower into resurrecting you without making sure that they’d get a return on that investment?”

“I know, sloppy, isn’t it?” Shepard said, giving Kaidan what he hoped came across as a joking grin. “I can think of a lot of better things to do with than many billions of credits than defy all the rules of nature and man just to bring me back.”

Kaidan scowled. “That doesn’t make sense.” 

“That’s all the explanation I ever got on the subject, Kaidan. And I wasn’t really in a position to argue with them. Hell, I haven’t really wanted to argue with it. When they tell me I was dead for two years, nothing but meat and bones on a hospital slab, I prefer to think of it as a lie, meant to make me feel indebted to them for bringing me back.”

The other man was silent for several long moments. “That’s a lot to swallow, Shepard.”

“I know.” He took a moment to recollect his thoughts. “I understood, you know. You refusing to come with me on Horizon. I understood you not coming along. And... And thanks for not trying to arrest me.” Kaidan would have been well within his rights to attempt to do just that on Horizon. Shepard had admitted that he was working with Cerberus, an admitted terrorist organization. And he’d had a couple of Cerberus operatives on hand as he’d done so. With the added fact that at that point, the Collectors were considered more a myth than a species, so Horizon in its entirety could have more closely resembled a set up instead of a rescue mission. 

Kaidan chuckled. “Right, because you would have just stood there and let me find a pair of handcuffs, take you in to Alliance lockup, stop you from completing your mission. No problem.”

Okay, so he had a point. Shepard had been there with a mission, and had Kaidan attempted to arrest him, he’d have probably been duty-bound to try and escape, if only because the Collectors were still out there and needed to be stopped. “Still. Not even a token effort. So thank you.”

After a moment, Kaidan nodded. “Anderson passed along a few reports my way about the Collectors. It... sounds like that was the right call.” That also probably explained the fact that Kaidan hadn’t opted for pointing a gun or hitting him with a biotic push when they’d met up in the prison. 

“I would have liked to have you with me there,” Shepard said. He had missed Kaidan at his side, and he’d been aware of it every step of the way. “I know why you didn’t, but... I’m glad we’re working together again.”

Kaidan was quiet for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad too.” 

On the pilot’s panel, an indicator began to blink. Glancing to it, Shepard rose. “Looks like we’re getting docking coordinates.”

“Must be Kenson’s Project base,” Kaidan said, nodding. He moved in close to Shepard. “Are you getting a bad feeling about this?”

“You too, huh?” Shepard had been hoping it had just been overactive paranoia on his part. It could still be, of course, but when his instincts and Kaidan’s both told them to be on guard, he knew enough from experience that listening to them was the best option.


	4. Chapter 4

The shuttle docked at the Project base. Shepard had to admit, it was a nice change of pace from the batarian prison colony. At least here, people actually seemed to care about maintenance and upkeep. In a prison, no one particularly cared if parts of the lower areas of a prison were in disrepair so long as the captives were kept in their cells. This had begun as a spy facility. It still wore that legacy in its design.

Emerging from the shuttle, the first thing that Shepard and Kaidan saw was the clock overhead, counting down.

“What’s that?” Kaidan asked. 

“I mentioned the pulses from the Reaper artifact? That the intervals were decreasing? Based on our estimates, this is when the pulses will even out and be steady. Continuous. We believe that’s when the Reapers will arrive,” Kenson stated.

The counter flashed in loud and bold numbers that the Reapers would arrive in just a little over two days. Two days, and a handful of hours.

Shepard and Kaidan shared a look – that was not expected. The Reapers were on their doorstep. If they didn’t do something about them now, then they’d be able to wipe out the Milky Way in a matter of months. 

“Two days?” Shepard asked in shock, having difficulty getting his mind around the idea. It didn’t seem right. It was just as wrong as... As having learned he’d lost two years on Lazarus Station. 

Kenson gave a solemn nod. “Yes.” She turned and began walking down the hall into the heart of the base. Shepard and Kaidan followed. “We’re as sure as we can be.” Was it Shepard’s imagination, or was there something in her voice that sounded almost like... joy? 

Those alarm bells in his head were getting louder.

She led them to a large door. “Here. Object Rho is behind this door.” She began to punch in a sequence into a panel by it.

The alarms in Shepard’s head picked up the volume. He glanced to Kaidan, who looked just as skeptical.

“We need to get the Project running again,” Shepard said. If this was genuine, then they needed to be ready to put Kenson’s plan into action right away. There really wasn’t any time to delay.

When the door slid open, those alarms became utterly deafening.

A glowing object, resembling a squid on its head, cast in black metal with a blue glow surrounding it, stood before them. And there was nothing in place to prevent it from being accessible to anyone who happened by.

Kenson made a theatrical presentation gesture, as if presenting a troupe of performers, instead of an artifact of an ancient collection of artificial intelligence who had openly declared war on the organic species of the galaxy. “Commander Shepard, Lieutenant Alenko. I give you Object Rho.”

Shepard looked to Kenson, a horrified look on his face. “Kenson, you have this out in the open?” he asked in shock. 

“This is not good,” Kaidan added.

“When we found it, it showed me a vision of the Reapers’ arrival,” Kenson said.

Shepard’s hand started reaching for his gun, and that was when a pulse hit. Kaidan was knocked off balance, but Shepard-

_-Reaper. A label created be the protheans to give voice to their destruction. Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of existence. Your extinction is inevitable. The cycle cannot be broken. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.-_

_A Reaper made its way across the Presidium on the Citadel, firing a beam of burning red death._

_Friends, companions, enemies, all stood, watching the Reaper._

_They were waiting to die._

_The Reapers were coming._

_-This exchange is over.-_

It was at that point that Kenson pulled out a gun and pointed it at Shepard, motioning for other security forces to take aim as well. “I can’t let you stop the Reapers, Shepard,” she said. 

Kaidan was still on the ground, but recovering, his biotics already flaring to life. Shepard, meanwhile, lunged at Kenson, wresting the gun out of her hand. She let out a surprised shout as he bent her wrist back.

It was at that point that the Project security guards opened fire. Shepard let her go and moved to cover as Kaidan hit the guards with a Push of his biotics and followed him.

“Take them down!” Kenson barked out as she fled the lab.

As they took cover, Kaidan glanced to Shepard. “Now it really is like old times,” he said.

Shepard could only spare him a quick glare. 

They exchanged fire with a handful of Project guards. For a group of spies and scientists, they were remarkably well-armed. Granted, they were inside batarian space, but still. The problems began when the artifact pulsed. Each time it did so, it drained their shields. The shields regenerated quickly, but the problem was definitely with the fact that it was happening at all. 

“Shepard...” Kaidan said as he dropped back into cover. He was clearly getting concerned about the shields issue. 

“I know,” Shepard countered. What exactly could they do about it? Under the circumstances, they really could only keep firing until something about this situation changed.

The change came in the form of another pulse, this one even more powerful than before, shutting down both Shepard and Kaidan’s shields and hurling them to the ground. As they struggled to recover, Shepard saw Kenson return to the room and approach them. Her omni-tool flared to life. She looked to the guards. “Quickly, sedate them!” Shepard felt a pick against the exposed skin of his neck, and very quickly, he felt his limbs grow heavy. 

As consciousness fled, he got one last glimpse of Kenson. And her eyes were flashing yellow.

Like Harbinger.


	5. Chapter 5

A voice was speaking, seemingly from a distance. Something he couldn’t make out. Shepard kept his eyes closed, recognizing that he wasn’t in a familiar environment without needing to see it – the bed he was on felt wrong, not the gentle mattress in his quarters on the Normandy, nor the Normandy’s medical beds. 

Then the memories came flooding back. Kaidan. Prison. Kenson. Project. 

Reapers.

Now he was aware. He remembered where he was – Kenson’s Project base, and surrounded by indoctrinated troops, just waiting to serve his head to Harbinger and all of his buddies. He pulled himself up and opened his eyes, and finally realized that he wasn’t alone.

“-shit! Not a glitch! Subject is awake! Repeat, Shepard’s awake!” The female doctor ran to the safety of command area, protected by a force field. She looked to Shepard, smug.

A quick glance at the door frame confirmed that there was no way to jury rig the controls, at least, not on this side. Shepard let out a frustrated sigh, then realized that he hadn’t seen Kaidan yet. Turning, he spotted Kaidan on a medical bed. He’d been stripped of his armor, which, a quick glance confirmed, so had Shepard. 

He went to Kaidan’s side, trying to rouse him. “Kaidan. Kaidan!”

Fortunately, whatever sedative Kenson’s people had slipped him didn’t stand up against Kaidan’s biotic metabolism. Kaidan stirred. “Wha... Shepard?” It took Kaidan seconds to recognize that they weren’t in any kind of safe space. When that recognition hit him, he was back to business, pulling himself up and off the table. “What’s our status?” he asked as he spotted the woman on the other side of the force field.

“Trapped, and running out of time,” Shepard said, having spotted a timer on the wall. They’d lost two days to Kenson’s sedatives – they were down to mere hours before the arrival of the Reapers. 

Kaidan caught sight of the timer on the wall and hissed a curse. “We don’t have much time,” he said, practically abusing understatement. 

“No kidding,” Shepard agreed. He looked to Kaidan. “How fine is your control of biotics?” he asked. 

“Not good enough to manipulate the controls without them in my line of sight,” Kaidan replied. “But...” He moved to a panel he spotted behind them. 

“What are you doing? Get away from that!” came the voice of the Project doctor. It was confirmation that they were heading for the right panel.

In seconds, Kaidan had used it to activate a LOKI mech. “Those things are-”

Kaidan cut off his objection. “Yeah, I know, but it’s not like we have better options.” Shepard couldn’t exactly argue that point and just watched as Kaidan used the mech like a puppet, taking out the doctor and her back up security mechs. Shepard recognized that a LOKI mech might actually be a threat if they gave them decent programing. 

“You handle that mech pretty well,” Shepard said. “Lasted longer than any mech I ever fought.”

“To be fair, how many mechs survive an encounter with you?” Kaidan asked with a smirk. Shepard nodded in acceptance of Kaidan’s point. 

Moments later, the mech was sacrificed in destroying a power conduit, shutting down the force field. As the smoke cleared, Shepard looked ahead and spotted a weapons locker. It seemed the most reasonable place for the Project crew to store their armor. Sure enough, tapping a control on the side had the lower drawers open and spit out their contents, which were all of Shepard and Kaidan’s weapons and armor.

“So,” Kaidan said as they pulled their armor back on, “what’s the plan here, Shepard?”

“Our first priority should be to find a communication console, check in with the Normandy,” Shepard declared. By the time any batarians could intercept the message and investigate, they’d be knee deep in Reapers. “But, if along the way, we see a way to send this asteroid heading for the Relay, we don’t pass it up.” Shepard was willing to sacrifice himself in order to stop the Reapers.

Kaidan nodded, though it looked as if he had more to say. Before Shepard could ask about it, though, a light on the medical console lit up.

Looking to it, Kaidan let out a noise. “Communication from somewhere else in the facility.”

Which meant that they were about to face heavy resistance. Shepard pulled out his Mattock and double check the heat sink’s status. “Let’s get moving.”

They soon ran across interference – Project guards were trying to set up a barrier of some kind, meant to box them in. It didn’t. They could hear Kenson barking orders over the commline, but the Project team, for all their strengths in engineering and espionage, were simply no match for two Alliance soldiers.

It wasn’t long before they reached what had to be the Project’s control center. Once they cleared the room, they began looking over the controls for their options. 

Shepard found the communications cluster with no difficulties and was about to flip it on when he realized what was next to it. “Kaidan.” He kept his eyes on the monitor even as Kaidan approached. 

“What is it, Shep... Oh.”

The controls to activate the Project were right in front of them. And it had already calculated the projected loss of life from the Mass Relay detonation. 304942 lives were on Aratoht. 304942 batarian lives would be snuffed out in an instant if they went through with this. 304942 lives, ended, and all as a delaying tactic – the Reapers would still come. They were going to be here either way. This would just buy them more time to prepare. 

“I have to do this, Kaidan,” Shepard said solemnly. “There’s no other way. If I don’t do this... the Reapers will have a straight shot to the whole galaxy. They’ll be able to get to every system with ease.” They’d be overrun in weeks.

There was a moment of silence between them, and then Kaidan nodded. “I know, Shepard.”

Shepard didn’t know what he’d expected – Kaidan trying to talk him out of it, maybe, offering a ‘this will haunt you, are you sure?’ or even possibly offering an alternative. But there was no alternative. There was nothing else to do. They had to do this, or the Reapers would be there. They would swarm the galaxy. If Shepard could be sure of anything, it was that. Kaidan could have easily made an argument, been the angel on his shoulder, telling him to find another way.

But there wasn’t. There was only do this, condemn those more than three hundred thousand lives to oblivion, all in order to hold the Reapers back even for a short period.

And when the Reapers got there, whatever they planned to do with the people on Aratoht... The relatively quick death of a Mass Relay detonation with the power of a supernova was a kindness.

Shepard called up the activation sequence, but hesitated at the moment the button began to glow green. It was what needed to be done, but it was still a difficult thing to do, to knowingly pull the trigger on hundreds of thousands of lives.

Then Kaidan’s hand was there too. He looked to Shepard with an understanding look on his face. “You shouldn’t have to bear this weight alone,” he said gently.

It was a little thing – whether or not that weight was shared didn’t change the burden itself. But it was a symbol of much. There was no third option, nothing that could just undo the fact that the only thing that they – that Shepard – could do to even just buy a little time.

And every second they delayed, the Reapers got closer.

Shepard heaved a deep and heavy sigh. “On three.”

They counted together.

One.

Two.

Three.

There was a rumble as the engines that pocketed the asteroid flared to life. The floor under their feet shook and knocked them off balance, though they recovered swiftly enough.

“Course locked in. Impact with Mass Relay in approximately two hours.”


	6. Chapter 6

The Project VI was unnaturally calm about their impending doom, even if that was the nature of Vis in general. 

“Two hours,” Kaidan said, sounding in awe of the fact that it was so soon and yet still so distant.

Shepard nodded. “We need to contact the Normandy, get off this rock. I want to stay in system until the last possible moment.” Just to make sure that nothing interfered with the asteroid striking the relay. They still didn’t know the full numbers of Kenson’s Project team.

Although Kaidan nodded, he didn’t move towards the console. He looked out the window, looking at the engine flare. “Should we warn the batarians?” he asked, as if the magnitude of everything that they were doing was truly hitting him. “Should we... give them...” He trailed off even as he spoke, recognizing what that would get – If the batarians answered a message from a pair of humans, they wouldn’t believe it. Even in the unlikely event that they did, there was no way an evacuation effort could be mounted in less than two hours. Kaidan had been there on X-57 when it was hurtling towards Terra Nova, he’d heard Simon Atwell’s estimates of what it would take to evacuate the planet. Aratoht’s population might be significantly smaller, but there was no way that the batarians had enough ships to evacuate even a fraction of it.

“If it were me... I wouldn’t want to know.” Shepard wouldn’t want to hear that death was coming and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it, or even fight against it. There was no good death, but at least that wouldn’t leave him feeling impotent until it came.

Neither of them liked it. They both understood it. “Then we need to get out of here, call the Normandy.”

Shepard nodded. “Right.” His emotions were bottled up and behind the wall. This was not the time or the place to spend on those thoughts. Instead, he moved to the computer console, punching in comm code for the Normandy. “Joker! Lock onto my signal and send the shuttle. I need a pick up now!”

On the screen, Joker’s image appeared, then broke into static. Shepard could just make out a handful of words – “ _Commander -- getting a lot of -- ference--_ ”

Then Joker was replaced entirely by the image of Doctor Kenson, a look of madness starting to push into her eyes. “ _Shepard, no! What are you doing! You’ve ruined everything!_ ” she snarled. “ _You leave me no choice, Shepard. I’m activating this facility’s self-destruct protocol. An eezo core meltdown will do it. The engines will overload before this asteroid can reach the relay. Our deaths are on your head, Shepard!_ ” Her communication cut out before Shepard or Kaidan could say anything. 

“She’s really lost it,” Kaidan remarked, abusing understatement.

Shepard went back to the terminal, pulling up information. “It looks like if we get to the two control rooms, we can reactivate the coolant on the eezo core.”

“We’d better get moving. Kenson’s not going to give us a lot of time,” Kaidan said, popping and replacing the heat sink on his rifle.

The first control room was close to their location. On the other side of a large window into the core, Kenson stood, staring at the core. Shepard and Kaidan had their guns out, but kept from firing, recognizing the glass as being reinforced against bullets.

“Don’t try and stop me, Shepard. I have to do this!” she shouted.

“Kenson, don’t you hear yourself? You’re indoctrinated! You built the Project to prevent the Reapers from coming!” Shepard called out. He knew it was futile, that Matriarch Benezia had been the only person they’d encountered who’d managed to even briefly break through the Reaper indoctrination, and then, only because of the asari’s significant mental abilities. Still, he felt he had to make an effort. Maybe she was like Saren, where something could reach her, even for a moment.

But the mad look in her eye as she glared at Shepard and Kaidan all but confirmed that she was too far gone. “There is no escape. There’s no redemption for what you’ve done! Everyone on this rock will die, and I will never see the Reapers’ blessings! And you will just die.” With that, she turned away from the glass and out of sight.

“She’s definitely lost it if she thinks the Reapers are a blessing,” Kaidan said.

Before Shepard could add anything, a squad of Project guards appeared, causing Shepard and Kaidan to dive for cover. Dispatching them, Shepard moved to the control console. It was a simple interface – push in the rod and reactivate the coolant. 

The difficulty was going to come in reaching the other – Kenson’s people were likely setting up a gauntlet for them at that very moment. 

“This is ridiculous,” Kaidan muttered as they moved. “They’re throwing their lives away, and for what? They either blow this asteroid up, and them with it, or they throw themselves at us and get killed. Either way, they’re going to die.”

“That’s indoctrination for you,” Shepard said, shaking his head. “They don’t have any concept of self-preservation if the Reapers tell them that they need to throw their lives away against us.” That was the weapon that Shepard feared the most from the Reapers. It also counted as part of why he’d destroyed the Collector base – either it would be figured out by Cerberus, allowing the Illusive Man to use it as he pleased, or it would be used on Cerberus, giving the Reapers their own forces. He didn’t trust Cerberus, but he hoped that the Illusive Man could, if he’d pushed for Shepard to have his multi-species squad for the mission through the Omega-4 Relay, put his xenophobia aside to fight the Reapers in some fashion alongside the other races. He might not trust the Illusive Man further than he could throw him, but at least he wanted to protect humanity.

Still, Kaidan shook his head. “This is gonna get worse before it gets better, Shepard. We’re gonna have to fight through every remaining Project operative from here to-”

“I know,” Shepard said, cutting him off. He knew full well what it meant. “You remember Benezia. The salarian captives on Virmire. We can’t undo the effects of indoctrination. It’s doing them a favor.”

Solemnly, Kaidan nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s still difficult. Our job is supposed to be protecting the lives of people, not taking them.”

They proceeded in relative silence, making their way through the Project base. If there was one thing that they could consider a positive out of this, it was that the base had been fairly small. The Project team had been a group of undercover operatives, they’d built it to be unobtrusive, and that meant that it couldn’t be detected easily, meaning it had to be small.

Still, for a small team in a small base, there were a lot of Project operatives between them and the opposite control room. 

The cooling rod insertion went smoothly, though. As Shepard focused on that, Kaidan tried to track down Kenson. Before he had even seriously made any kind of effort, Kenson’s voice cut in over the comm. “ _You’ve done nothing, Shepard! I can still override power to the engines! Try to stop me!_ ”

“How can I resist such a tempting offer...” Shepard muttered.

“How come she’s only acknowledging you?” Kaidan asked.

Taking the lift down a level, they found Kenson, standing in front of the eezo core. All traces of sanity were gone from her face as she pounded on the controls.

Kaidan raised his pistol, taking aim. “Step away from the reactor, Doctor!”

“You’ve ruined everything!” Kenson howled. “I can’t... I can’t hear the whispers anymore!” She sounded on the verge of tears.

Kaidan looked to Shepard, unsure – ‘whispers?’ Shepard held up a hand. “Turn around, Kenson. Now!”

Even as she did so, she continued to babble, madness clearly having overtaken her. “You’ve taken them away from me. I will never see the Reapers’ arrival.” Then she held up a trigger device. “All you had to do was stay asleep. None of this had to happen.” She flipped it open.

Shepard and Kaidan both pulled their triggers, recognizing that Kenson was a lost cause. She let out a gasp as her body jerked from impact. But as she hit the ground, she managed one last act of defiance and pressed the trigger.


	7. Chapter 7

“Warning. Collision imminent. Warning. Collision imminent.”

The repeated announcement from the Project VI dragged Shepard back to consciousness. He pulled himself up and saw Kaidan doing the same. Even as he cleared the cobwebs, Shepard saw the control panel in front of them both, and moved for it. They needed to get off of this rock.

“Joker, this is Shepard. I need a pick up, now!”

Instead of Joker, it was the VI who responded. “Communication systems damaged.” Shepard hissed a curse under his breath.

“The console must have been too close to the explosion,” Kaidan said.

“So we find another one.”

“That won’t be easy. Systems jury-rigged together by undercover operatives tend to use a central system like this one for communications throughout the base, so they can restrict any possible infiltration efforts,” Kaidan said. 

Shepard added ‘espionage organizations’ to his ever-growing list of organizations who pissed him off.

“Evacuation protocols are in effect. All personal please report to emergency evacuation shuttles,” the VI stated. It was something.

“Where’s the closest evacuation shuttle?” Shepard demanded.

“Take the lift from this room to the external access. From there, proceed to the communications tower.” The VI was unusually helpful, but Shepard wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He looked to Kaidan. “Let’s move. We don’t have much time.” The timer on the wall was down to only about half an hour, and the asteroid would hit the relay before that. They could use the comm tower to signal the Normandy and meet up with them in a shuttle as they made their way to the relay.

The Project base was eerily silent as they moved through it. They knew why, of course, as anyone left alive, which would be a small number, considering, would be heading for the shuttles, but it was still a sight that was unsettling to pass through. 

They reached the airlock and activated their helmets and magboots as the lock began to cycle. They were greeted with weapons fire from the remaining Project personnel. 

And a YMIR mech. 

The Project guards were easily dispatched, but the mech gave them some trouble. Shepard fired off a round of bullets that bounced off of its armor. “What the hell?” Shepard said in frustration and a bit of amazement as he and Kaidan ducked behind cover.

Kaidan activated his omni-tool. “Looks like a prototype mech with enhanced armor. Read a few intelligence reports about the armor upgrades. Didn’t know any were in active service yet. Thought they were still on the drawing board. Only heavy weapons can dent that armor. Even then, it’d take a while.” He glanced up and over the mech’s head, where the Alpha Relay was steadily increasing in size. “I don’t think we have enough time for that.”

Shepard nodded. “Agreed.” Quickly he began thinking about what their options were. He hit upon an idea. “Can you Lift that thing with your biotics?” 

“Lift it? That mech must be at least a ton!” Kaidan protested.

“Doesn’t the lack of gravity have any effect?” Shepard countered. It didn’t really matter how much magnetic force was at play to lock you onto the ground if you weren’t connected to the ground at all.

Kaidan was quiet for a moment. “I guess we’ll see. Strip its shields and I’ll try.” Only the strongest of biotics could break through all those defenses without help. Good as Kaidan was, he didn’t classify himself in that elite group.

Popping a new heat sink into his rifle, Shepard smirked. “Leave that to me. You just focus on getting it out of here.” 

Kaidan focused for a moment, pulling together his strength. Shepard moved out of cover to draw the mech’s fire. Fortunately, the mech was as simple-minded as its smaller siblings. It saw a target, it focused on that to the exclusion of most other targets. Shepard’s shields took a few hits as he moved to get around the mech, have it put its back to Kaidan to better hide what he was planning. Another spray of gunfire hit the cover he was hiding behind, blowing it to pieces and hurling Shepard to the ground, only barely giving him a chance to plant his feet to the ground and prevent himself from hurtling out into space.

That was when the biotic effect struck the mech. It began to raise up in the air, and the mech paused for a moment, clearly unprepared for its sudden flight. It attempted to raise its arm back up, fire off another round of bullets, but the biotic field was keeping it still. It lifted up, further, further...

Then, like a rubber band snapping, it seemed to go flying. Shepard knew in reality, it was staying in place as the asteroid hurtled away, but whatever – the mech was no longer a threat.

“Shepard! You okay?” Kaidan called as he moved out of cover.

“I will be once we contact the Normandy,” Shepard answered. With the mech dispatched, they had a straight shot to the communications tower. Shepard figured the Normandy was nearby – they had to have picked up the sudden flare of the engines, and the asteroid moving on a collision course with the Relay. The question that Joker had, probably, was just where Shepard was. 

Moving to the comm tower, Shepard intended to give him something to lock on to. “Shepard to Normandy, do you copy? I need an immediate evac!”

He stood there a moment, waiting for a response. Instead of the Normandy, it came in the form of Kaidan tapping his shoulder. “Shepard...?” Shepard looked away from the comm relay in front of him and to the projected hologram beside it.

A Reaper, outlined in yellow. Based on the eye-like pattern in the front, Shepard had a pretty good idea which Reaper in particular this was – Harbinger, the Reaper who’d controlled the Collectors.

“Shepard.” The booming echoing voice confirmed his suspicion of the Reaper’s identity. “You have become an annoyance.” Shepard would take that as a point of pride – to annoy a vast collection of ancient machine life older than known civilization was an accomplishment. “You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us.”

Shepard didn’t really think of it as a victory – the Bahak system was about to die. Three hundred fifty thousand people would die. All in a stalling action. But he wasn’t about to give Harbinger that satisfaction. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we can’t win this. But we’ll fight you regardless. Just like we did Sovereign. Just like I’m doing now. However ‘insignificant’ we might be, we will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will find a way. That’s what organic life does.”

The Reaper seemed unimpressed. “Know this as you die in vain. Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourselves for the Arrival.” With that, the image of Harbinger faded. As it did so, the Normandy appeared. 

“Coming in for pick up, Shepard,” came EDI’s voice in his ear.

Shepard didn’t need to be told twice. “Come on, Kaidan!” The two ran for the airlock hatch on the side of the Normandy which slid open at their approach. Shepard leapt into the airlock and waited for Kaidan to make the jump behind him. When he felt the plates under his feet shift with the sudden new weight, he glanced to Kaidan, making sure that he’d gotten his feet under him, then moved forward. “Joker! EDI! Get us through that Relay, now!”

“Is there a particular destination, Shepard?” EDI asked.

“That asteroid’s gonna hit the relay, EDI! In five minutes, anywhere but here is gonna be a great place to be!” Joker countered, his hands already flying across his console. 

Shepard and Kaidan stood behind Joker’s seat, not willing to relax until they were certain that they were safe from the asteroid. 

Right before the Normandy flew out of the system, as the Relay drew them in, Shepard would have sworn he saw the wake of energy of a vessel dropping out of FTL. A very large distortion wave.

With the Normandy out of the system, Shepard moved to the galaxy map. There was a blinking red light where the Bahak system was – telemetry was no longer coming in from that relay. A blinking red light, indicating that the entire system was dead. 

A voice in his head, the sound of duty of and responsibility, he figured, reminded him that the mission wasn’t quite over – Hackett needed to know what had happened. Shepard squared his shoulders and looked to Kaidan. “Kaidan... you can store your gear in our armory, at least until we reach the nearest Alliance facility. Or... wherever you want to go. I need to... write a report for Hackett.”

Kaidan put a hand on Shepard’s shoulder. “I can do you one better. Hackett wanted to personally debrief me about this. He wanted me to report to Arcturus Station, but I think, under the circumstances, he’ll meet us somewhere, if you’d rather do it somewhere else.”

Shepard would, all things considered – he was still uncertain of the Alliance’s stance with him. Hackett might approve, and officers like Jacob and Gabby and Ken might have resigned in protest of what had happened to him, but for the rank and file? “I’d appreciate that. Still, he’ll want something to put on file.”

With a nod, Kaidan pulled back. He glanced to Joker. “Joker, can you patch me in to the nearest Alliance beacon?”

“Yeah, sure.” There was something icy in Joker’s tone, seemingly still holding on to hard feelings from Horizon, or whatever, but he followed Kaidan’s request.


	8. Chapter 8

They met a shuttle carrying Admiral Hackett – he’d opted to pilot himself, considering that everything about what Shepard and Kaidan had been off the record in the first place. Shepard and Kaidan were about done in the medlab, Doctor Chakwas chastising them both for their bumps and bruises, not that they could have prevented any of them. 

Hackett entered the medbay as she moved away from her patients. “Doctor Chakwas,” he said. He said it without judgment of the fact that her ‘personal leave’ had led her to the Normandy, a Cerberus-built vessel.

She returned his acknowledging nod. “Admiral. I presume that you’re going to insist upon speaking with my patients, regardless of my opinion?”

“It is rather important, Doctor.”

“You’re in luck. I was about to release them. I’ll give you the room,” she said, fully aware that Hackett’s conversation would be considered classified and outside of her security clearance level, even if she was already fully aware of what was going to be said. She moved out of the room and to the mess table, pressing a control on the wall to darken the windows, preventing anyone out in the common area to be able to watch. 

“I figure you have some questions,” Shepard said.

“You figure correctly. I asked you to quietly recover Doctor Kenson from a batarian prison. Now, there’s a batarian colony world that’s stopped reporting in, a Relay that’s offline and presumed destroyed, and reports from the Hegemony about human infiltrators before an entire planetary system goes dark. I’m hoping you can fill in the leap in logic involved.”

Shepard and Kaidan shared a look, Kaidan nodding to Shepard that he’d let him take the lead. “We met up in the prison, found Kenson and got her out of there. She had discovered a Reaper artifact on an asteroid in the Bahak system. It showed her a vision of the Reapers’ arrival, and her team made a reasonable inference regarding the Reapers arrival, that it was days away. The artifact also indoctrinated her and her team. Before they were fully enthralled, they set up a series of engines on the asteroid to crash it into the system’s Mass Relay. Our only choice to prevent the Reapers from using that relay to access the whole galaxy was to activate Kenson’s project. None of her team was spared from the indoctrination, and we had to leave them behind. There was no time to warn the batarians. We barely escaped before impact.”

Hackett was silent, mulling over Shepard’s words. “Commander Alenko, do you concur with Shepard’s assessment?” he asked. Shepard could tell it was a formality – get the Alliance operative he’d sent in to assess Shepard’s conclusions.

“Yes, sir. I was with Shepard the whole time, and the Commander’s every decision, I agreed with.” He awkwardly cleared his throat. “The... activation of the engines... We both pressed that button, sir.”

“I see.” Hackett was silent, considering that for a few long moments. “This puts the Alliance in a bind, of course. I trust your judgment, I saw Sovereign, and I know that was no geth warship. I refused to pretend this was over. I’ve been pushing where I can about the Reapers, but this... The batarians are going to want blood for this. They’ve never liked humanity, but now they have a legitimate grievance. Despite your reasons, it was still a human who destroyed the system.”

Shepard’s gaze fell to the floor. He knew it wasn’t a rebuke, but he still felt the shame of not being able to accomplish some miracle third choice that would have allowed the Reapers to have been delayed without the loss of life. “I’m aware, sir.”

“Understand this, gentlemen. If it were solely up to me, I’d give you both a damn medal for what you did out there. The Reapers are a threat to civilization as we know it, and I know you did everything you could to minimize casualties. One colony is nothing compared to what the Reapers would do to us. They wiped out the protheans, and they had a galaxy spanning empire. But the batarians will raise hell over this. And there’s just enough evidence to start a witch hunt, focused directly on you. And the last thing we need with the Reapers on their way is a war with the batarians,” Hackett said.

Shepard had a thought. He didn’t particularly like it, but... “Admiral, I know you have to make a full report. I already started one for you. So far as the official record goes... I’ll take full responsibility for activating the engines on that asteroid.”

Immediately, Kaidan attempted to protest. “Shepard-”

Shepard cut him off with a glance. “I’m already tainted because of having worked with Cerberus. It might have been my only way of combating the Collectors, but I’m still a liability. Meanwhile, it lets Kaidan still have full access and freedom.”

“Shepard, you don’t have to take the bullet for me here,” Kaidan said.

“It’s what’s practical, Kaidan. You know that. We need people in a position to do anything that can put us in a better military position when the Reapers do arrive.” Not that Shepard particularly liked the concept of stepping in front of the firing squad, but if someone had to, he’d sooner not drag someone else along.

And Hackett could see the wisdom. “He’s right, Alenko. Although we’re on Shepard’s side, there are many out there who only recognize that he and Cerberus had some kind of an alliance. This is unpleasant, but it at least gives us room to maneuver something when things take a turn.” He turned back to Shepard, now that he alone was facing the consequences. “Right now, the case against you is flimsy and circumstantial. That means you have some time yet before the Alliance comes calling. But they will be calling. When they do, I’m going to want you in dress blues, ready to face the music. It’s not ideal, but cooperation will go a lot farther than resistance.”

“I understand, Admiral.”

That settled, Hackett began moving to the door, but he paused and looked back to Shepard. “And Commander? Keep the report I know you’re writing up. I don’t need documentation to know you did the right thing.” With that, he was out the door, heading for his shuttle.

Kaidan looked to Shepard, looking like he wanted to continue arguing. “Not here, Kaidan. I think I’d sooner have this out somewhere other than the medical bay.”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow at the request, but nodded. They waited a few moments, allowing the lift to deposit Hackett in the shuttle bay, then moved to the lift, Shepard punching in the command for his quarters.

Almost as soon as the door closed behind them, Kaidan was already talking. “Shepard, I know I can’t change your stance on this, but... Hell, you deserve better than that, than to take the fall for doing the only thing you could be expected to do.”

“Thanks for that, Kaidan. For what it’s worth, once the Reapers do arrive, I figure that’ll undo a lot of the repercussions of taking the blame. After all, they give me the credit for taking down Sovereign, which means they’ll need a certified Reaper killer on hand when they’re here.”

“Yeah, there’s a comforting thought...” Kaidan shook his head. Then he gave Shepard a serious look. “Be honest with me, Shepard. How are you handling it? Because... I can’t stop thinking that...”

“There should have been another way?” Shepard finished. 

Kaidan nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know there wasn’t, that Kenson was lost before we even got there, and if we hadn’t done what we did, the Reapers would be invading our space right now. But...”

“This was the worst kind of victory.”

“Yeah.” What else was there really to say? The war that was soon to come was going to be even harder than this was, and there was no way around it. They had struggled this far, and the struggles ahead were only going to be worse. 

They both sat at the couch in the lower area of the cabin, silence settling in. Then Kaidan looked to Shepard. “So what comes next?” 

“You go back to the Alliance, do everything you have to get them ready for the Reapers. Meanwhile, I get ready to face the music.”

Kaidan shook his head. The injustice of it was difficult for him. “It’s still not right. Considering everything you’ve done... You deserve better than to be a sacrificial lamb for the Alliance maintaining good relations with the batarians.”

“I’m not sure ‘good’ relations is the right word for it...” Shepard shook his head. “Do we have any better options? Hackett was right, we can’t be caught in a war with the batarians when the Reapers show up.” He was quiet for a moment. “You asked how I was handling it? I don’t know if I am. I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet. I made the call. You chose to carry the burden with me, but... I made the decision. It was my call. And I chose not to even try to warn the batarians.”

“You were right, though. They’d never have listened to a human warning them.”

“Still. I didn’t even try. My decision... was to let over three hundred thousand people die. That was what I chose. And it was the only one I could. But I’m going to carry that weight for a long time.” He looked up to the skylight overhead, displaying the expanse of stars beyond the window. There were no answers out there to be found.

Then Kaidan was beside him, a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You don’t carry that weight alone, Shepard. Remember, I chose to hit the activation button with you.”

Shepard couldn’t help but smile at the words. “You know, I missed having you around, Kaidan. It hasn’t been the same.”

“You too, Shepard. It was... good, working with you again.”

“Think we’ll be doing it again anytime soon?” Shepard asked. 

“Probably sooner rather than later, if the Reapers show up soon enough.” Kaidan sighed. “When Hackett calls for you, I’ll be there, however you need me, Shepard. I promise you that.”

“Thank you, Kaidan.” Shepard didn’t know how he would call in that favor, given that, knowing the Alliance, they would opt for house arrest and guard with no calls out, but Hackett would be sure to keep him in the loop. “All the same, it’s probably better for you if you leave the Normandy as soon as you can. The less to have you tainted by association.”

Kaidan nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He rose from his seat, then snapped off a salute to Shepard. “I’ll see you soon, Shepard. Consider that a promise.”

Shepard rose, but instead of returning the salute, he extended a hand. Kaidan, smiling, took it, giving it a firm and solid shake. With that, he headed for the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was SO. VERY. TEMPTED. to include a sex scene at the end (seriously, every second of writing that last scene had a part of my mind going 'KISS! KISS!'). But if I'd done that, this fic that was already one of my longer ones would have taken even longer. So I had to cut it short. It was not for a lack of desire, just a desire to get this finished.


End file.
